Cato's Story
by Kaliska147
Summary: The Hunger Games from Cato's POV. It follows the storyline but it's different than the original story. Read if you're interested ! I do not own The Hunger Games.
1. Chapter 1

There is no other way. I have to win the games.

Cato moves quickly, slicing each and every object his trainer throws to him. He  
had been training ever since he remembers, throwing knives, spears, and  
learning how to swing a sword. Swords have always been his preferred weapon,  
because the movements were so precise, so fluid and always easily manipulated  
unlike spears and bows.

After a half an hour he stops throwing them and the hair on the back of my neck  
starts to rise. We never stop training. Not even if I'm breathing so hard that  
I can't move, he will switch to something that we can do while I catch my  
breath. As soon as I do, it's back to work. I look at him, only to see a  
strained expression on his face. I take a deep breath, trying to prepare myself  
for what I know comes next. That was always the warning as the door swings  
open. A pitied expression and silence.

I love my trainer, though I don't know his name. It wasn't allowed to share  
personal information between trainer and tribute. We've been together for nine  
years. I'm guessing he's in his thirties, because he still looks young with his  
sandy blonde hair and built body. People who don't know me often think he's my  
father. I'm just fine with that.

"Cato!" A rough, drunken voice fills my ears making me cringe. People  
would think he's clumsier when he's drunk and it would take the edge off his  
cruelty but it never does. In fact, it worsens it. I know I shouldn't talk back  
to him when he's drunk, just quietly stand there and wait for it all to be  
over. But something in his staggering posture and the alcoholic smell that  
seems to clog the air whenever he's near frustrates me.

"Yes father?" I spit out the last word like the word itself is  
poison. This seems to catch his attention from the rows of weapons his eyes are  
poring over hungrily and I involuntarily shudder at the thought he would use  
them for.

"Well, son," he replies with as much venom that was in my voice, but  
with him seems more dangerous, as if I was challenging him. Selecting a knife  
he slowly makes his way to me, and I count each footstep as they echo in the  
nearly empty room, except for the weapons lining the wall and the metal  
elevator doors from which he came from that lead to the lobby and the various  
target and training rooms for any combat purpose I could ask for. "I  
wanted to see how you were, out of the kindness of my heart." He sneers, the  
comment seeming to be amusing to him as well.

"Well, thanks but I'm fine. Now can we get back to practice?" I  
stretch trying to look bored, which only seems to add to his annoyance.

"You seem to be bored, lacking in training" he plays with the knife  
in his hand, while my trainer opens his mouth as if he was going to defend me,  
or himself. Either way, he shuts his mouth and thinks better of it. "Maybe  
I should help with that." He finishes, by hurling the knife straight  
between my eyes and I quickly dive to my left. Only I miscalculated the speed  
and it cuts into half of my ear leaving me writhing in pain holding my ear.  
"Too slow. At least now I know for sure I don't have to worry about  
another mouth to feed when you're gone, because I darn bet you won't be coming  
back." He chuckles to himself, taking a swig of liquid from the small  
canister in his pocket and makes his way out of the room.

"Bastard." My trainer mutters under his breath as the elevator doors  
close. He kneels next to me, prying my hand from my ear and looking at the  
wound, then presses his watch that instantly signals for a nurse from an  
in-practice accident. "C'mon let's get you stitched up" he helps me  
to my feet and as soon as I'm up, we're met with a storm of nurses coming from  
the same place he came and left. 


	2. Chapter 2

Handing me a bag of candy colored pills from a nurse, I'm ushered out of the room to see my trainer standing before me, against the opposite wall in the long hall. He looks at my face first, but soon enough his eyes trail to the white bandage covering my right ear and his face twists in a painful look.

"It's fine. Nothing big hit, my hearing is fine, also. So if you're going to look at me like I'm a kicked puppy then just go home." I say like it's no big deal, masking my expression but silently hope he doesn't leave. And he doesn't. Not for a long time, looking into my eyes and eventually my face must reveal some weakness because his face softens and does something that is so utterly insane I have to catch myself from sobbing as he wraps his strong warm arms around me. This alone is enough to get him fired and me a new trainer, but with the reapings two days away he may get it worse. To train a weak tribute alone is a crime. So hugging me and saying pretty words was never really a part of training.

"You know, you should get yourself a girlfriend. You wouldn't be so stiff." He chuckles as he releases me, making me smile.

"Yeah, well getting a girlfriend to love me then making her watch me fight in an arena with twenty four others to the death seems a bit cruel." I point out.

"True... Then you'll be the one who has to be in love."

"What?" I look at him confused. How can I love someone? I should be focused on winning? Is this some sort of angle he wants me to play on camera for the games? Every tribute has an angle, each year they're humble, funny, handsome, or even a sniveling coward. A girl in district 7 played that role. Made everyone believe that she was so weak they wouldn't bother with her. This of course, was a big mistake. It turned out that she was some kind of expert as you could say with an axe. She let the lot of them kill off each other and then picked off the rest.

"Let me show you. Is it alright to be done with practice?" I nod. One of the least things I want to be doing right now is thrown around some weapon in the same room we've been in not an hour ago, with the room smelling like cleaner from their attempt to erase what has happened. What they failed to erase would only exist inside my trainer's and my head. My father would probably forget it in a few drinks. To my surprise we walk straight past the lobby, which is made to make the room give off a woodsy look to it. Leaves were lining the tops of the walls that were painted a soft shade of green. On the walls there are pictures of each and every tribute that has won a game in the last 73 years from district 2, and at the very end is the empty frame that is meant for the next tribute.

Once, while escaping the violent hands of my father I ran here. I was soaking wet because a downpour has started before I left. I was told by my mother to never come here, never go in the big brick building covered in ivy. That promise wasn't kept long after she died. My father took me here after drinking too much. He hasn't always been a drunk, he used to be kind and loving with a laugh that warmed me to the bone and made others nearby join in. Then he got in with the wrong group, she told me. He started doing things that made my mom worry herself sick to where one day, she didn't get up. Only lay there motionless. She was alive, but dad hadn't been home in weeks and the pressure of the bills came in. I went to my brother's room to find it empty, but an empty liquor bottle shattered on the ground. I went outside and ran to the playhouse in our backyard. Dad made it for us when I was three and my brother, Chet, was six. We spent most of our days playing pretend here. Only he wasn't there that day so I went back home.

The door was wide open, probably because I forgot to shut it when I went inside. The smell hit me as soon as the door was closed. A sticky, sour smell that came with me falling and scraping my knee. I ran to mom's room to find my father holding mom in his arms with a knife, crying. Then turned to me screaming it was all my fault. I knew it wasn't. I told him that if he hadn't left them, mom wouldn't have gotten sick. I should have kept my mouth shut, but I don't regret that decision, not now. He started towards me with the knife, but his shirt got caught by her ring. The golden band studded with eccentric jewels from district 1 that my father presented to her on their wedding day.

I ran as far as I could away from the house, as fast as I could go. By the time I stopped my breath was short and fast, and I was chilled to the bone from the icy droplets that seem to sink in and freeze me to the core. Without thinking I went into the nearest building, and met with stern faces all around. Like they all had something important to do, and ignored the child before them. Until I felt a tap on my shoulder, and turned to see him. He looked to be in his young twenties, with grey-green eyes that my mom said she saw in me and loved. He was incredibly masculine, and his blonde hair looked just like Chet's.

"You can run pretty fast." He smiles at me, holding out his hand "I'm a trainer here from here on, would you like to stay with me?" he asks almost clumsily. I stare at him, trying to find out what he means. Mom said strangers weren't always nice people and I shouldn't trust them, but something about this man felt warm. He didn't look scary, and he looks like Chet. So I nod. "Great! Want something to drink? We have something nice and warm if you want." He winks.

"Yes please!" I say without thinking much, already deciding to trust him. He hands me a warm cup, full of a thick brown liquid. I remember having this before during the winter reruns of the games. Mom used to put peppermints in hers while she drank it. I take a long sip before I look at him again, already starting to feel warm.

"It's called hot chocolate. Its good, isn't it?" He takes another cup, filling it with the creamy liquid. "I like to dip peppermint sticks in mine, you want one?" He offers me a white stick with red swirled around it. I take it slowly, watching him dip his in the hot chocolate and lick it off. I can't help but laugh a little because he looks so silly, but he just stares at me. "What's wrong?" he finally asks, and for the first time in months, I start to cry. I told him what happened and sits there nodding as he listens, not saying anything after I told him. He never spoke of it again. Instead he led me to the photos on the wall with pictures, telling me why they're there. That every one of those people were very strong and brave, and that he wants to train someone like them someday, pointing to the empty frame and saying "That's where they'll be, right there."

After a while of processing this, I finally turn and pluck a pencil from the coffee table behind us and write on the gold plate where the names are engraved and put: "Cato Hadley" in my best handwriting as I smile up at him.


	3. Chapter 3

I can still see the pencil in the gold plating, though a name was long ago carved into it. My trainer walks ahead, without making sure I was following. I continue, finding a nice sized pebble to kick along with me on the paved roads. I ignore the plain white buildings that surround me, all being the same. No one in district 2 is allowed to have more than three kids. That way they can make each house identical to all the others, as if the capitol was trying to say "You're all the same to us, easily replaced." Just like us tributes are to the games. We are easy to replace, each and every year. What's more absurd is that we love the games. Like the lives themselves aren't important, just that we win. As the district to provide peacekeepers, fighting is our job. No one would think it would be strange to make a building where young men and women would train to be military officers. They would be officers, actually, if it wasn't for the fact that they train us specifically to volunteer. Those who chicken out, or someone volunteers in their spot, become military leaders.

We stop, when I notice the soft lapping of water on the shore. Right on the edge of our territory there is a large lake, which connects 2 and 4, the fishing district. You can faintly see a glow on the other side, and the occasional boat. We sit on the dock, our feet almost touching the water. We know what'll happen if we do touch it, because the water is electrified, shining slightly with power 24/7. They do this to keep us in. The people say it's to keep out unwanted creatures, but I doubt that. Not with district 4 always so splash-happy in the water all day. You can watch them playing in the water like children if you wanted. I've always liked to think I was the hunter, the person skewering the fish with the spear, but the more I think about it I see myself as a fish. Speared by the hunter named Snow.

"That, is what you should fall in love with. I don't mean to go all sentimental on you but try to make sure you can see each and every sunset." He points to the sky ablaze with what looks as fire. The longer I look at it, the brighter and smaller it gets until the last of it fades to the night sky, leaving me in darkness. My trainer must've left a while ago, because as I get up there is no one around me. I look to my watch, looking at the neon green numbers staring back at me. 11pm.

Our district has a curfew. If we aren't home before a certain time then you could be whipped publicly until you're far gone under and passed out. With the reapings so close, I'd be lucky if I'm shot. No exceptions. The fact that I'm supposed to be the tribute does not help. They expect me to be asleep, inside the underground rooms they have within the training center. All doors within the district are most likely locked, so heading there now would not be an option. There is always one door that is never locked, because no one in their right mind would ever go there. After ten minutes of thinking, I'm not so sure I want to go there either.

They send out hovercraft each night to search for heat signals for anyone out late a week before reapings. Tomorrow will be my last day of peace before I volunteer. Now would not be a good time to die. I have a mission, after all. There is only one way to make people notice me. One way to prove I'm not just some weak kid that gets hit by his father and hides. No, I am not that person. The whole of Panem will know this soon enough.

I get up, working out the stiffness in my legs. Scanning the sky and roads I start off in a light jog, but thinking about the hovercraft push me to a full run. I know this place all too well, even if I've never been in most of the buildings. The house assigned to us isn't far from the training center, but from the shore is an extra ten minutes jogging. The white-plastered buildings go by, and even at my quick pace I try to take in the buildings as much as I can. The shop that sells the cloths, a simple yet odd store catches my eyes. It wasn't the different paints that cover the walls that is permitted by shopkeepers to use, but the doors. One of the double doors were propped open, and a light that is supposed to be on at all times was off.

I look around, seeing that this was the only shop this way, and decide to check in. That way, if I'm caught I could say I heard some noise coming from here and ran to figure out what was happening. Anyway, it can be my excuse to being out late. I slip inside, trying to hide the noise of my breathing. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, all the ridiculous hats still on its pole, the expensive coats untouched. If it was a break-in, I knew I would have to move in further, where the white plastic suits are. Most of the population aren't living in riches, but mostly can afford food. Other than the people living in the rift, that can't.

The side is the place where all of those in the district who aren't peacekeepers or shopkeepers live. Only 1/4th of the population live there, which is better than what I expect of most of the districts other than one. They are the outcasts of the district, meant so little to the people that they aren't allowed to go to public events, including the victory tour. Food and supplies will be delivered to them, but most of it will be the leftovers that we don't eat. They have little to nothing, but they choose to live this way, which is why I have no pity for them.

"Who's there?" I hear a girl whisper behind me say, a slight tremble in their voice. By her voice she sounds like she's about my age.

"Cato Hadley." I reply simply, but swallow my fear. What if I don't live long enough to prove myself?


End file.
